Keeping Up With the Howards

Christmas Lights, Anyone?

So, with owning a house comes putting up Christmas lights. And with putting up Christmas lights comes shopping for Christmas lights. Jay and I both went on a wild goose chase this weekend for C7 red and clear lights...apparently, everyone else did the same thing BEFORE US! We went to Hobby Lobby twice, three different Lowe's, Home Depot, Target and (yes, it got this bad) WAL MART! And, to our dismay, Wal Mart was actually the only place that pulled through...

We wanted red & white lights to go around the house and the flower bed/sidewalk, but it turns out they don't sell red & white lights (although I am pretty sure Bill and Lisa have them every year...). So we ( well, Jay) settled with buying strings of red lights, strings of clear lights and red replacement bulbs and actually unscrewing them and screwing them back together so that they were red, clear, red, clear, etc. He was determined...

But the finished project looks great! Best house on the block if I do say so myself...which is pretty impressive considering we were Christmas light virgins. (Please note the wreaths in the window...those were my contribution.)

(insert picture)

Our Other Baby

On March 25th, our first little nephew was born! He will also be getting a lot of face time around here...so, turns out we will have some "look at him, isn't he so cute" pictures to post! Noah Matthew is going on 9 months and is the cutest little thing ever! My brother and sister-in-law, Tony & Stacy, live in Denton, TX but we have gotten to spend quite a bit of time with little man, despite the distance (thanks to numerous trips to Dallas, their trip to Austin and a family trip to the beach compliments of Dad Archer). So, behold...Noah Matthew Archer!

Home Sweet Housework

For those of you that don't know (in which case, you should join Facebook), Jay and I bought our first house back in June. It happened pretty quickly and with the help of some friends who were moving to Houston. They needed to sell and we wanted to buy, so it worked out perfectly. Three bedrooms, two baths and a monster of a backyard (which we'll discuss later...).

I need to take a more recent picture, seeing as though we have had enough rain to actually grow some "grass" (ok...so, mainly weeds, but they are GREEN) in that dead spot at the bottom of the picture.

The house was built in the mid-70s, so we have a lot of projects- some done and some on the list. We have already painted just about every room in the house (including the fireplace), put down laminate/hardwood floors, removed the popcorn ceilings and replaced the back door. And when I say "we" I mean "the people we hired"...except for the painting, we managed that ourselves.

It is still a work in progress, but we will start posting some before and afters as soon as they are ready.

Here we go...

So, we realize we don't have any "look at our little offspring...aren't they cute" pictures to post just yet, but, being new homeowners (with a lot of work on our hands) and living far from our families (and lots of our friends), we thought it would be a good time to join the blogging revolution. Right now, our house is our baby (and this makes me happy), so we can't wait to share all of the fun stuff we are doing. But it won't just be house updates...we still have lives! And I know you would all much rather hear from Jay (he has much better writing skills...and he's funny), so I will put it to a vote and this just might be my last post...